An executive summary of a Locus Robotics and SupplyChainBrain webinar about the state of automation in the warehouse, with Neil Bentley, Locus’s senior director of product development.

Automation and robotics constitute an extremely broad category for applications in the warehouse, Bentley notes. Gartner lists nearly three dozen subcategories of warehouse automation, including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), automated guided vehicles (AGVs), collaborative person-to-goods picking, pick-to-light systems and a wide variety of additional fixed automation. All have one thing in common: “To increase the efficiency of the operation.” Such systems take over manual processes and deliver the greatest gains in areas where the most human labor has been required.

It's not a matter of imposing automation on existing operations, though. “To adopt and get the benefits of automation, you have to change your processes and operational workflows,” Bentley says.

In discussing the many tasks that take place in a typical warehouse, Bentley distinguishes those that are “value-added” and those that aren’t. In the latter category is the extensive travel that humans must undertake in a non-automated warehouse — by some estimates, walking between eight to 10 hours a day. Automation allows facilities to “take that time spent walking and put it into what [humans] are really good at — finding the right item, picking it, capturing the information and putting it into a cart for shipping.”

Automation is also necessary to handle the wave of e-commerce orders, alongside traditional wholesale and retail items in large quantities.

With automated systems comes the need to ensure the safety of human workers. They must be designed to comply with regulations and certifications in the specific areas where they operate, Bentley says.

In picking the right form of automated systems, managers must possess “a strong understanding of what your goals, growth and needs are,” Bentley says.

Watch the full webinar here: https://www.supplychainbrain.com/articles/37696-i-need-to-add-automation-so-now-what